Possible to install TrueNAS on QNAP TS-464eU hardware?

TrueNAS General
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The QNAP TS-464eU has an attractively small footprint and is only 1U in height. It has four 3.5-in bays and two sockets for M.2 NVMe drives.

I am wondering, whether it would be possible to populate the two sockets with 256 GB drives, configure them as a mirror, and use that as the boot pool. Then, I would imagine, I can do anything I want with the 3.5-in bays.

I haven’t worked with a QNAP NAS and therefore do not really understand it. The sales chat agent told me that the QNAP OS is installed on all drives. Not sure, whether he meant that it is a distributed OS, or what. It did not quite make sense.

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The topic I turned a boat anchor (QNAP TS-451) into a TrueNas server (now bare-metal install) refers to the install of TrueNAS on much older QNAP hardware. Not sure, what of that applies to the TS-464eU. There are references to (very small) QNAP DOMs in that thread, but I don’t know, whether the TS-464eU has one of those, or even whether it is 16 GB or larger.

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QNAP website lists Flash Memory 4GB (Dual boot OS protection) . Guessing OS is mirrored and that is what chat agent meant.

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While it does list a pair of NVMe slots, I’m not sure if the QNAP UEFI/BIOS will allow you to boot directly from them. Other community users with similar systems that don’t allow native NVMe boot have sometimes used a Linux-based boot manager on a USB stick that basically loads first, and then jumps to the internal NVMe device.

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If somebody else on here knows, I would like to know, definitively, whether a QNAP NAS can boot from NMVe drive. without such a crutch.

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I just signed up for a user ID on the QNAP NAS Forum, where I posted this:

Can a TS-464eU be set up to boot from an internal NVMe SSD?

If not, how large is the internal flash storage on that model?

Does it have any internal SATA ports (other than the ones wired to the four 3.5-in bays), where I could attach a boot drive?

I’ll post my findings here, as soon as I learn anything.

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Based on my thread at the QNAP forum, I am going to try to install TrueNAS on QNAP NAS hardware, specifically on two internal 512 GB NVMe drives.

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Let us know how you fare! The QNAP spec sheet states that you have a second SODIMM slot free with a max of 2x8GB so that might be a prudent upgrade especially if you plan to add some Apps.